I drafted some routes of the potential
Portugal Estradas Nacionais system. I was aware that signposting is not perfect in Portugal but it is more challenging than expected.
There is a
National Road Plan of 2000 (
Plano Rodoviário Nacional -
hobbyist work on google with better resolution). It represents the planned future road dedication, i.e. indicating future road extensions or realignments, and national roads to be transferred to the regions or municipalities. However, many roads were not (yet) built nor downgraded.
For instance, some N roads were transferred to the regions or municipalities but signs have not been changed, i.e. still signed as N roads in the field.
Some N roads were renamed to R or M roads but are still maintained by the national road authority. There is a
great map of the national road authority indicating all routes they maintain. The indicated road numbers are sometimes not what we expect from signposting in the field nor from the national road plan.
Some upgraded N roads, i.e. upgraded to expressway or express road standard, are signed as IC or even IP roads. The unfinshed gaps of the continuous road are either only signed as N road or IC/IP or both. The road plan map and the maintenance map do not indicate segments through cities which are under local maintenance. Portugal is also following the Swiss / German approach on using road numbers on direction signs which are meant as "To" signs. They don't look different to normal direction signs really indicating the road number of the intersecting road. There are also a lot of old and outdated road numbers in the field.
Let's look into N3:- It intersects the former N361, now R361. The road is still under national maintenance. Should I call the wp R361 or N361? Should I add the R361 route? If so, as R361 or N361?
- It intersects N362 which is still under national maintenance but should be the future M362. Should I call the wp M362 or N362? Should I add the N362 route? If so, as M362 or N362?
- The northernmost N3 segment (just north and south of A23) is indicated being N243 on the road authority map. It is not signed northbound and southbound direction signs indicate N3. Does it mean "To N3" only? OSM and GM also indicate the segment as N3. The road plan map just indicates that the segment will remain a national road (black), and the hobbyist went with N3 too.
N2:- The very long segments b/n N2 and N2Alj and further to N2Mor are ER2 now. However, still maintained by the national road authority. Include to prtn or not?
How should I draft the prtn system? How can I be sure that the drafted routes are "correct"?The actually drafted N1 to N3 routes only reflect the segments which should remain national roads according to the 2020 road plan. Sources and notes to some PRT routes can be found in the
readme on Github.
There was also some discussion about the
National Road Plan of 2000 on
SSC, followed by a private chat.
btw:I also reworked all existing routes from prta, prtip, prtic and eure systems on mainland Portugal in the past days. The work is mainly based on the maintenance map from the road authority and 2021-22 GSV. And OSM of course, especially for wp labels of M/R road numbers and street names. I sometimes took the future road number, i.e for non-national roads where OSM (and GSV) still have N numbers.
